In many ways, 1900 was a significant moment in time. Just as we recently
experienced "millenium madness", so, too, the turn of the century was seen
as a social and cultural landmark. From the perspective of psychology, the
discipline was still in its infancy: Wilhelm Wundt had established the first
experimental laboratory only 25 years earlier, and William James's
Psychology, the first notable general text , had appeared only ten
years earlier, in 1890. However, one could argue that even more significant,
in terms of ultimate impact on both psychology and society, was the publication
in 1900 of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.

The Interpretation of Dreams was a landmark, for it represented the
first of Freud's books to capture popular as well as academic interest.
Scientifically, Freud's ideas about dreaming and other mental processes were
often controversial among his peers, and the controversy has not subsided
in the 60+ years since his death. Yet whether one accepts or rejects Freud's
theory, there is little doubt that psychoanalysis had significant impact.
His study of motivation and mental processes laid the foundation for all
psychodynamic theories, and changed our culture by changing how we see ourselves.

Understanding just how much our world was changed because of Freud's work
can be difficult to grasp, for we are immersed in a world of Freudian concepts.
Every time we make reference to doing something "unconsciously", or refer
to someone as having a big "ego", we are using Freudian terms. (Most people
in our culture in fact find it hard to believe that some cultures have no
concept of "unconscious" processes!) As a result, it can be useful to explore
the background of Freud's life, and the nature of our culture before his
ideas so profoundly altered it.

Resources

The
Freud Web--Overview of Freud's life and ideas; part of larger site on
Victorian Era
which was created by George Landow of Brown University. Useful for understanding
the social context in which psychodynamic theories developed.

Sigmund Freud:
Conflict and Culture--Online version of exhibit which appeared at the
Library of Congress, Fall, 1998, and later travelled to several international
sites. Provides many photos and materials to explore relationships between
Freudian theory and our culture.

The Freud Museum--Site maintained by Freud Museum in Vienna (Freud's
home and office for almost 50 years); variety of resources, from
chronology
to a
virtual
walk through.

Freud Museum,
London--Site for museum based in Freud's London residence; has extensive
resources, including discussions of dream analysis, a photo collection, etc.

All psychodynamic theories stem from psychoanalysis, for Freud first developed
the basic ideas which underlie the approach as a whole--particularly the
idea that understanding behavior requires insight into the thoughts and feelings
which motivate our actions. While the textbook deals extensively with the
basic concepts of psychoanalysis, in many ways the theory is intertwined
with the man. Indeed, one could argue that in no other approach has one person
had such a dominating influence, not even Watson for Behaviorism, or Rogers
for Humanistic Psychology. Consequently, it should not be surprising that
Freud was ranked higher than any other psychologists on various lists of
scientists and thinkers of the last millenium. While many other psychodynamic
theories exist today, Freud still casts a long shadow, as the following resources
show.

Resources

Sigmund
Freud--Extensive discussion of Freud's theory (along with brief biography),
by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.

Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams attracted public interest
in his theory, but he was certainly not the first person to suggest that
dreams have a meaning. Indeed, from Biblical times, people have sought to
understand their dreams. What distinguished Freud's interpretation was the
way he related it to his broader theory of mental processes and behavior,
by invoking the concept of a dream censor whose function is to hide
the true meaning of the dream from the person's conscious mind. Thus, Freud
saw dreams as having a symbolic meaning that could only be fully understood
in the context of the individual's overall behavior. This view is still
controversial, with some physiological researchers arguing that dreams are
simply an artifact of brain activity during sleep, with no true significance.
Clearly, psychodynamic theorists view dreams differently--as do many individuals.
For those who are curious, the resources below provide a starting point for
further explorations of dreaming.

Resources

The
Interpretation of Dreams--Full text of English translation of third
(1911) edition of Freud's classic work; from Christopher Green's History
of Psychology web site at York Univ., Toronto.

The Quantitative
Study of Dreams--Site created by two psychologists at the Univ. of Calif.,
Santa Cruz; provides extensive resources on the scientific study of
dreams. A companion site,
Dream Bank, contains
an on-line archive of thousands of dream reports, searchable by keywords
and dreamer age, gender, etc.

Imagine a situation: An adult seeks therapy because of distress about personal
relationships. In the course of treatment, the individual comes to recall
traumatic experiences from childhood--in particular, of being sexually abused
by a family member. Recalling these experiences seems to produce therapeutic
benefit--but also leads the individual to seek criminal prosecution of their
presumed tormentor. The incidents seem to have happened more than twenty
years previously, and there is no corroborating evidence. What should the
individual do? What should society (in the form of the legal system) do?

From a psychoanalytic perspective, this situation would not be considered
unusual: in essence, the therapy has led to remembering traumatic events
which were repressed. The concept of repression is fundamental to
Freud's theory, since it provides the basic explanation of how thoughts and
experiences end up in the unconscious. Freud encountered such reports many
times in his clinical practice--though he ultimately concluded that most
such reports represented fantasies, not real experiences. As noted in the
text, both his original interpretation (that many adult problems relate to
childhood traumas, including abuse) and his subsequent reassessment (that
most such reports are fantasies) have attracted controversy. Today, given
increased awareness of sexual abuse, many mental health professionals tend
to support Freud's original view, that most reports represent repressed memories.

While our society has become more sensitive to abuse of children, the attempt
to seek justice through the criminal law, rather than simply therapeutic
release, has made the issue more controversial. Although circumstances sometimes
lead to independent evidence to indicate the repressed memories are true,
the situation is more problematical in instances where there is no corroborating
evidence, but simply therapeutic reports of experiences decades earlier.
Not surprisingly, individuals who are accused of such crimes tend to vigorously
defend against the charges, and the concern arises as to whether the events
really happened or not. (Recall Freud's doubts.). In some cases, the defendant
will draw upon expert testimony by cognitive psychologists like
Elizabeth
Loftus, who notes that recall can be distorted and--at least in the
laboratory--people can be induced to recall events that never happened. (See
text, and Cognitive Approach.)
Thus, critics have argued that at least some reports of repressed memories
of abuse represent fantasies misinterpreted by inept therapists.

In the end, the issue involves both scientific questions about the nature
of memory (represssion vs. reconstruction) and social questions about the
justice system (burden of proof vs. false accusations). As the links below
discuss, there is no absolute answer--some reports are doubtless true, but
some may well be distorted or false, and there is no simple way to determine
which is which. Indeed, the nature of memory makes it unlikely that we can
find a technique to assess uncorroborated reports of abuse which will fully
satisfy the needs of the justice system. As a result, the controversy is
unlikely to disappear in the forseeable future.

Memory,
Abuse and Science--Article from American Psychologist by clincal
psychologist Kenneth Pope, emphasizing methodological issues involved in
evaluating reports of recovered memories; other resources, including a follow-up
article, are listed under link for "Memory & Abuse".

Scientific Research
on Recovered Memories--Extremely detailed review of the existing literature
on recovered memories of sexual abuse, by psychologist Jim Hopper. Tends
to support idea that memories can be repressed, but nonetheless provides
careful discussion of findings and citations for published studies.

Among psychodynamic theorists, the name Carl Jung is probably second only
to Freud in terms of popular recognition. Though at one time he was a close
friend of Freud, and seen by Freud as his potential successor, Jung was already
a practicing therapist before he first made contact with Freud. As the text
notes, Freud had a poor track record in terms of mentoring, with many of
his best students ultimately separating from him on bad terms, usually because
of disputes about the theory of psychoanalysis. (Freud was a pioneer, but
he seemed to have little tolerance for critics.)

Jung ultimately developed his own theory, which differed in important respects
from Freud's. Most significant were his de-emphasis of the importance of
sexuality and aggression as motives, and his division of the
unconscious into the personal (much like Freud's original concept)
and the collective (a universal unconscious, containing symbolic patterns
called archetypes). (For more information, see text and or links below.)

Resources

Carl
Jung--A chapter from an electronic book, detailing Jung's life and theory,
by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.

Carl
Gustave Jung--Site includes biography, discussion of Jung's theory, and
on-line essay by Jung on the relation of analytical psychology to poetry.

The C. G. Jung
Page--Commercial site about Jung and Jungian analysis, includes a good
collection of web links.

The
Shadow Exercise--A simple exercise to explore the Shadow, one of the
basic elements of Jung's theory of personality; by John Suler of Rider
University.

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter--An online personality
test, based on Jung's concept of psychological types. The test is similar
to the Myers-Briggs test, and has the same 16 basic types. NOTE: including
this link implies no sanctioning of the test's validity or reliability, but
it may nonetheless be instructive and/or entertaining. An updated version
of the test can be found
here.

There are several similarities between Jung and Alfred Adler. Both men trained
as doctors, over time sought out Freud to learn about psychoanalysis, were
seen as potential successors by Freud, but eventually broke from him over
theoretical disputes. While both men disagreed with the emphasis Freud placed
on sexuality as a motive, the similarities in their views end there. To Adler,
the most important motive is the feeling of inferiority, which he
felt originated in the sense of dependence and helplessness which infants
experience. (Many biographers see a parallel between Adler's theory and his
often experience of being sickly as a child.)

Adler's theory in many ways seems more straight-forward than Jung's, since
his focus on striving for superiority seems less abstract than Jung's
concept of individuation as the goal of growth. This is also seen
in other aspects of this theory, such as style of life as a n individual's
pattern of personality and adjustment. (Note Adler had little interest in
Jung's concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious.) In the end,
his theory faces many of the same difficulties as other psychodynamic theories,
in terms of evaluating its validity. (See text.) Nonetheless, there is little
doubt that Adler has had significant influence within the psychodynamic approach,
and as the following links illustrate, his theory still has many supporters.

There are many forms of psychodynamic theory, beyond those discussed
above. Some, described as neo-Freudians, retained many of the concepts proposed
by Freud. Among these are the "ego psychology" school pioneered by Freud's
daughter Anna, which focusses on the strategies used to preserve the ego,
especially defense mechanisms. The "object relations" school (emphasizing
the importance of relationships, especially to the mother in early childhood)
includes a number of theorists, including Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott,
and John Bowlby. Other psychodynamic theorists diverged significantly from
the Freudian tradition--even some who were trained originally in psychoanalysis,
like Karen Horney, Erik Erikson (a student of Anna Freud), and Erich Fromm
(who, while often described as a neo-Freudian, is actually closer to the
humanists than to traditional Freudian theory). It is impossible to address
all of the variants here, either historical or contemporary, but the following
links can provide a starting point if seeking information on a specific theorist.

Resources

Anna
Freud--Detailed profile of Anna Freud; from the website of Women's
Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society at Webster
University.

Selected
Biographies--A set of online biographies of various individuals in the
history of psychology, including a number of the major psychodynamic theorists;
part of Muskingum College "History of Psychology" site.

Noted Psychoanalysts--Brief online biographies of major
analysts, including all those mentioned here and others, by the American
Psychoanalytic Association.

As discussed in the text, Freud saw the role of the unconscious as a key
element in the dynamics of behavior--but how could one gain access to the
unconscious? One of the techniques which Freud identified early on, and which
he continued to emphasize as he developed his theory, was the interpretation
of dreams. (Freud, 1900) As time went on, the idea that dreams had a special
meaning (which could be understood through psychoanalysis) captured the popular
imagination. By the 1920's, many books and articles aimed at the general
public had appeared, leading non-psychoanalytic psychologists to challenge
the value of dream analysis. However, for many people, the desire to understand
their dreams was stronger than any skepticism expressed by critics.

Benjamin and Dixon (1996) provide an example of this popular interest, as
expressed in the case of a young woman who wrote directly to Freud in 1927.
Mary Fields had evidently read a number of Freud's works, including The
Interpretation of Dreams; in her letter, she asked him to explain a dream
which had so deeply upset her that she obsessed over its meaning for weeks.
She was 20 years old, a stenographer living in a city in the American Midwest.
She was an only child, and came from a relatively prosperous Protestant family.
Recently, she had become involved with an Italian man from a poorer family--a
relationship her parents rejected. In her dream, she was in an unfamiliar
but pleasant house, with her father and uncle on the porch. The brother of
her boyfriend appeared with a letter from him, informing her that he had
married the day before to a "Mildred Dowl" (a name she didn't recognize).
On hearing this news, she plunged a letter opener into her chest, collapsing
on the floor. When she awoke from the dream, highly agitated, she found herself
lying in bed in the same position she had been in at the end of the dream.

Mary Fields sent her letter directly to Freud's home in Vienna in November,
1927. At this point in time, Freud was 71, and in poor health (partly owing
the cancer of the larynx which eventually killed him). He received large
volumes of mail, and despite his failing health, continued to be an avid
correspondent. He replied to Mary Fields (his letter dated only two weeks
after hers) in a typed letter which Benjamin and Dixon suggest may have been
transcribed by his daughter Anna. His response was gracious, but he declined
to interpret her dream other than to suggest that she likely felt some
ambivalence about her boyfriend. This reply is consistent with his character
(intellectually curious and considerate), but also reflects his belief that
dreams could not be properly interpreted without sufficient contextual
information of the type that develops during analysis. In fact, in his letter,
Freud suggested that some of the details, like the name Mildred Dowl, would
be understandable "if you were here in Vienna and could talk to me in my
study". (Benjamin and Dixon, 1996, p. 465)

Hence, while strongly committed to the belief that dream analysis was an
important tool, Freud was unwilling to consider dreams out of context, in
the way that many popularizers of the 1920's were promoting. Today, most
psychoanalysts would express a similar reluctance: dreams may be meaningful,
but that meaning is not easily understood through self-analysis or superficial
dream guides.